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An anonymous reader sends word that a trial has opened in Paris that could shut down Scientology in France. The organization stands accused of targeting vulnerable people for commercial gain. Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US, and anti-cult groups have pursued it vigorously over more than 30 years. The current case is based on complaints filed by two women in December 1998 and July 1999. Three other former members who had initially joined the complaint have withdrawn after "reaching a financial arrangement with church officials." If convicted, the seven top Scientologists in France face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of €1M. The Church of Scientology-Celebrity Centre and its Scientology Freedom Space bookshop not only face a much larger fine but also run the risk of being shut down completely.

But Scientology uses various tactics to FORCE you to stay in the organization. Putting you deeply in debt, isolating you from all of your friends and family so that it's hard to reconnect with them if you leave Scientology, harassment, suspected murder, etc., etc.

Casinos do none of that. Sure, there's psychological pressure to keep gambling, but you can walk away at any time with no repercussions, and they don't do anything to actively make walking away painful.

Oh you've never been to a casino. They will catch you at the exit and offer you another free drink or another free buffet, now try to walk away from that! The temptation, the pressure, those puppy dog eyes of the staff... can you say no to them?

Still holds water. In both cases, you can be in there voluntarily. You can choose to be in Scientology, as well as you can choose to be gambling.

The difference is when you want to quit. A gambler may be forced, by his "inner demon" to keep gambling, even if he wants to quit. A Scientologists will be forced. There is no chance. Just as much as there is no chance that the night is dark. The night simply is dark.

Let's say, for sake of argument, that you convert to Catholic Christianity. While there are classes to bring you up to speed on your new religion's dogma and so forth, they're either free or relatively cheap. You also (and here's the important part) DO NOT NEED TO TAKE THEM. You can go to a Catholic Church and participate in the Sunday Services (sing hymns, take communion, etc.) without having to pay a dime.

The Church of Scientology, on the other hand, has courses and auditing sessions that are required. They cost money. It requires spending many thousands of dollars to take all the OT classes. And it's only after you've spent those many thousands of dollars and been brainwashed for months (if not years), that you find out about Xenu and Teeagaack and all the cheesy sci-fi elements of this so-called religion.

Yeah, that's right. All the stuff that we/.ers generally know about the CoS? It's not public knowledge. (Okay, it's a little more public after that one South Park episode), but the point is still there. There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican. There's no super-secret version of the Qu'ran or the Talmud.

And how many other religions do you know of that have trade secrets? Yeah, the Church of Scientology protects the OT coursework under the laws governing trade secrets. Funny thing, that.... I don't recall the Communion class I took as a wee nipper requiring a non-disclosure agreement.

There's not some super-secret version of the Bible that you only get to look at after 15 years of faithful service and huge stacks of cash donations to the Vatican.

How do you know that?

It's known, for instance, that the Church suppressed the Gospel of Thomas. The only remaining full copy that we know of was found at Nag Hammadi in the 20th century. It escaped the purge by virtue of being hidden for 1800 years or so.

If the Scientologists are ultimately successful in suppressing Operation Clambake and similar efforts, it's conceivable that the full text of LRH's teachings will similarly disappear from history, to be replaced in the public consciousness with a less controversial, Church-sanitized version.

To be fair, not all or even most of the suppression of the Apocrypha was active and intentional. Most of it was simply that they'd been judged to not fit in with the religion the council was building, for whatever reason (probable forgery, ill-regarded author, or simple lack of a discernible moral lesson), and that most of the preservation of literature was done by the church. There wasn't so much an organized hunting down of the things (though occasionally a pope or bishop or something would take it upon themselves to go a zealot on us) as a general apathy among the people maintaining the libraries. If you were a monk, would you spend a year of your time copying a decaying tome whose contents your society had deemed worthless, when there were thousands of competing volumes of actual worth that needed copying to avoid being lost to the ages? Me neither. I mean, copying a single book was sometimes a monk's entire life's work, that's a big investment.

So lighten up, it wasn't ill-intentioned. And most of the apocrypha are either crazy or pointless (in my own estimation as well as the church's), so meh anyway. Hell, I dunno how most of revelations didn't get thrown out as well, it's pretty whack too.

(Side note: would have been nice if more monks had thought books of math and engineering were worth the effort, all we got was the half-assed job the muslim translators did of preservation. Better than the complete absence of the technical books in europe, but still. Anyhow, if you're going to be mad at the church for losing books, be mad at them for those, not the useless apocrypha bullshit.)

After reading about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R2-45 [wikipedia.org] in wikipedia, I can't think how can this be part of the modern, civilized world if that turns out to be a true fact.

FYI: R2-45 is a Scientology auditing process created by L. Ron Hubbard. The process of R2-45 specifically pertains to shooting the target with a Colt.45 pistol, causing the victim's "thetan" to leave the body (exteriorization). In 1952 during a meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, Hubbard demonstrated the process of R2-45 by firing a shot at the floor.[1][2] In a lecture of 1958, Hubbard comments that "Death is not the same as clearing but there is, remember, R2-45. It's a very valid technique. A lot of people have used it before now." [3]

R2-45 may go a long way to allow others to conclude Hubbard thought his religion was a joke. I do wonder if you invest your entire life saving in religion, whether you actually meant a self R2-45 but were just too squeamish.

Hubbard also used it in apparently non-humorous contexts. On March 6, 1968, Hubbard issued an internal memo titled "RACKET EXPOSED," in which he denounced twelve people as "Enemies of mankind, the planet and all life," and ordered that "Any Sea Org member contacting any of them is to use Auditing Process R2-45."

Former Scientologist http://www.clambake.org/archive/books/mom/Messiah_or_Madman.txt [slashdot.org]
>Bent Corydon wrote that in late 1967 at Saint Hill, he personally received a copy of an order naming four former Scientologists as enemies and "fair game" and ordering any Sea Org member who encountered them to use R2-45.

Scientology does not have the status of a religion there, as it does in the US,

This seems to me to imply that if it were a religion, then a different set of standards for its behaviors would apply. I'm sorry, but why does religion get a pass when it comes to promulgating crazy ideas that suck money out of the unwary? It's just bad policy to go on protecting religions like that. IMHO

Don't get me wrong, I think religion is evil, but even I think that a lot of the "crazy ideas" of one religion over another is what we're accustomed to. (In other words, I think they ALL have crazy ideas, but I too am probably less biased against some than others... though I think we'd be a lot better off if we got rid of all of them. Though once again, South Park has humorously hypothesized that even if everyone became atheist, we'd find something else to fight about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_God_Go [wikipedia.org])

Nothing makes me think that. Upon rereading the message I replied to, I realize there is nothing that directly states that they were talking about the US. Since most slashdot readers are based in the US [citation needed], and the *quoted text* in the message I replied to referred to the US, I presumed they were talking about why religions 'get a pass' in the US. I now realize that they could be talking about different legal treatment of religions in France too.

What makes you think that amendments to the US Constitution apply in France?

That wasn't the point at all.

mattack2 was simply saying the reason they are able to prosecute The Church of Scientology in France but not in the United States is because the First Amendment of the US Constitution apparently prohibits their Congress from passing any laws either respecting the establishment, or prohibiting the free exercise, of religion.

We have a similar situation where I live, where a polygamist community avoids prosecution (to some extent) because the local government is afraid a case would not withstand a Charter challenge. They don't want to end up enshrining polygamy in law.

I'm not sure how you got the idea anyone was suggesting that the First Amendment of the US Constitution would apply in France.

The constitution's 1st amendment however does not give the right to religions for them to infringe upon the rights of others.

Thus it is illegal for some parts of Sharia law to be practiced in the US. A Muslim woman(or man for that matter) could choose of her own free will to abide by a fairly strict interpretation but she could not legally be held subject to some of the punishments there-of for breaking the law.

This gets into difficult territory when you start talking about things like zoning laws. For example: does a church's interests in having say a parking lot where none is zoned outweigh the rights of its neighbors to have some say in how their community is developed?

Also you get into the questions of brain washing, or just good old fashioned abuse and threats it is often difficult to tell if a church/religious group is on the up and up or if they are breaking the law.

Furthermore it is debated weather or not the freedom of religion allows for an individual to choose no religion or for them to remain silent in their choice of religion. Also tests for minimum requirements for religion are sometime difficult.

With a religion, not everyone involved is a charlatan, or at least it's hard to prove. Scientology is a demonstrable fraud thinly disguised as a knock-off of gnosticism with some 1950s technology buzzwords.

What I don't understand is why the Catholic Church hasn't been busted under Rico. I mean, here you have a group that is paying off families to keep them from filing criminal sexual assault charges involving children (which I'm pretty sure payoffs like that are illegal, especially when minors are involved) and then spiriting the criminal out of the area and placing him in the EXACT SAME POSITION knowing he is going to rape again. And of course not even warning the area of what they have done. And from what we have seen in past cases this is well known SOP from at least the cardinal level.

So why haven't they been busted under Rico? Churches shouldn't get a free pass when it comes to organized crime. And the way they had the SOP down seems pretty damned organized to me. Just as I think the CoS should have been shut down long ago using Rico for tactics like Operation Snow White [wikipedia.org]. While I believe you are free to believe what ever you wish, when you start performing criminal acts as a group then all bets should be off.

Wow, that's not even close to correct. No taxation without representation was English law, not US law. In the US, we eliminated the need for such a clause by eliminating the kingship and building the entire system around representation. We also did not put taxation in the hands of the executive (not sure if the English did or not, honestly), and territories of the US get non-voting representation in Congress. The clause is not required because it is built into the system.

Churches are tax-exempt because they have charity status. I'm not sure precisely how it is built into the law, but it does not apply to everything the church does, and the assumption is that the church is a net benefit for society.

The reasons religions don't get persecuted, and are in fact very difficult to prosecute for wrongdoing is because of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. In a nutshell, it says Congress can't make a law that prohibits or even negatively influences the free exercise of any religion. Cults in the US are on shaky ground, but once you achieve Religion status - i.e. have your own church and can be considered tax exempt - you are on very solid ground legally.

In theory, even cults are heavily protected by the first amendment, in practice they don't fare as well as those belief systems that are considered full blown religions.

this is actually the thing I've never gotten about tax exempt. I know they are classified as a charity, but as a child who had to go to church, I noticed very little went to "charity". Most (about 1/2) went to the building & maint fund. About 1/4 went to the pastor salaries and other salaries. I think about 10% actually got given away. Call me crazy, but can you imagine a charity (secular) giving away only 10c on the dollar and not being hassled for it? I've often thought the IRS should require like a minimum of 60c on the dollar to go to helping people outside the organization for the organiation to be a charity. The numbers should be audited every other year and if you fall below the threshold, your taxable.

They're actually classified as non-profit under 501c3. Thus it doesn't really matter how much money they give away, as long as they're not making money for owners/shareholders, and avoid supporting specific candidates and parties (supporting issues is allowed.) A student-run space advocacy group that i've been involved with is classified the same way as far as the IRS is concerned, and we're in no way a charity, and hardly have enough money for that to mean anything anyway.

Also, I don't think any honest church would claim to be a direct charity. The standard collections are known to support the ministries of the church, which while good for the community (at least in the eyes of the church members), are not given directly to the poor and needy. In fact, I know at my mother's church they have certain collections where they specifically state that it will go to a particular charity instead of the general church fund.

Finally, I'd point out that even though most church funding isn't directly charitable, it is indirectly. Clergy provide support and counseling for their congregation, regardless of their economic status or amount paid in. Church buildings are used for external groups like AA and the Boy/Girl Scouts, as well as church-run programs that are again not dependent on amount paid to the church. Church members will often volunteer en-masse to help out in the community and in the world, often while avoiding direct proselytizing (rules are that you don't bring it up, but you're free to if those you're helping ask). It seems to me that churches are for the most part good for their community and indirectly charitable, as long as their not trying to force an agenda (ahem... Prop. 8).

Say what you will, but you've got to love the genius of scientology. They take things that are generally considered serious crimes and make them "religious rituals". I can imagine someone coming to Ron in the early years..

Scientologist: Ron, I've got a problem. I just got angry with my girlfriend and shot her in the chest with my.45.Ron: Hmm.. let me think..

I'm not sure if this will have the outcome you're hoping for.Prosecuted religions typically thrive as the "community" comes together against the perceived threat, see: Christianity, Judaism, Mormonism.

Can't speak for Christianity or Mormonism, but I do know that the biggest threat facing the American Jewish community today is the lack of a big threat. Confusing? Basically, since there isn't any big threat, Jews aren't practicing as much, intermarrying more, not joining temples, etc. Whole segments of the community are dissolving into secular society. After surviving multiple millennia of threat after threat, it seems ironic that the threat to Judaism would be no threat to Judaism.

Tribalism in general is dying, and this is a good thing. The world is shrinking. And every day we're closer to a time when people think of themselves as human (rather than Tutsi, Arab, Jew, etc.) is a better day. There was a time before these tribes where created, and there will be a time after they're long gone.

As much as you like to believe religion is being forced on you, it's not.

And, incidentally, repent or suffer for all eternity in the fires of hell! Accept gods love and forgiveness, infidel, or know gods wrath as you bath in relentless torture, torment and agony for all time!

Very true, religion is not being forced on anyone. Just a knife being forced into the throat of anyone who happens to have better sense or just doesn't believe in the same religion.
Too many have died at the hands of men supposedly doing God's bidding following His word. You can't just dismiss thousands of years of massacres: because it's still going on today.

Are these rules applied uniformly in France? If so I wish we could do such things in the US. For instance, int he US we have many so-called faith based persons that produce what in effect infomercials in the form a religious services for the sole purpose of separating vulnerable people, often the elderly on fixed income, from their money. Then there are many churches that preach the gospel of prosperity, which is a magical incantation that they say will bring you 10x more money than you give to the church

"but leaving these con artists on the street while harassing scientology just seems unfair"

That's not how civil cases work. You can't just go after anyone and sue for damages based on them doing something not right to someone else. These are personal complaints against scientology by people who feel they've been wronged by the group. If someone else has been conned out of money by another group, it's up to them to try bring it before a court.

The Church of Scientology has been denied church status, and has been under investigation for attempting to overthrow the German constitution. Unlike the US constitution, the German constitution opens with a bill of rights - Article One is "the dignity of a person is inviolate". Since part of the Church of Scientology's tenets is to have its members take control of all secular organisations. That's why they've been investigated for conspiracy against the constitution.

Germany has these sorts of clauses due to a certain organisation back in the 1930's, and they don't want another case of loons coming in and tossing out the rule of law. (There. I've just proven Godwin's law again, that any comment thread will eventually mention Nazis. Are you happy?)

It's a false citation. The interior minister just said (his opinion) that he considered the organisation "Verfassungsfeindlich", which basically means they don't respect things like personal freedom etc. which are declared in the constitution.

True enough. But if I go to a Roman Catholic church, I'm not going to get hit up for money if I ask to see their sacred texts. Heck, they'll probably just give me one - whether I ask or not. And tithing is optional, in practice.

The summary imples that the US has given scientology religious status. The US does not recognise or give religions status. This is prohibited by the Constitution. Furthermore, being a religion does not exempt one from laws, so the law would apply the same no matter if it was a religion or not. Being a religion does not allow an organisation to do things that would be illegal for another religion to do. Furthermore, an organisation being a religion should not single it out for more intense persecution.

As far as the charges against scientology, scientology does use sleazy methods to extract methods from the followers of this cult. However, these persons handed over this money willingly, in cases this is not illegal as long as Scientology did not attempt to coerce them or prohibit them from leaving.

Lost a couple employees to them. They became involved based on promises of becoming "Auditors", but when they couldn't pay for the lessons (training, etc), they were dumped faster than a hot pan handle.

Interesting thing is I later made the plastic parts for the e machine auditing. (2 plastic parts, 2 resistors, 2 connector pins and wires). Later ran into the molder who makes the training case for their dvds and printed materials. Once the box was filled with $20 worth of materials, the loser had to pay near $2000 for it as I recall (It has been 5 years or so).

... how can people take money not to testify in a criminal trial? I'm not a French lawyer, but if the penalty could include jail time, this sounds like a criminal charge. It's one thing to settle a civil suit out of court in exchange for some compensation. But refusing to testify if you have evidence of criminal activity is a crime itself.

Now, if the COS is stupid enough to enter into a contract that requires someone to violate the law and they renege on their part of the bargain, a civil court might find that agreement to be unenforceable. Since it requires someone to violate the law, the courts might refuse to find for the COS if they try to get the money back.

Supporting those who seek the abolition of Scientology is one thing, and I support such an end goal myself.

Calling for the end of theism in all forms, however, is something else entirely. I realise that atheism (or at least fashionable agnosticism) is part of the established groupthink here on Slashdot, but as difficult as this may be to comprehend, for some of us, theistic belief is nothing but positive, and it doesn't inspire us to go out and rape, murder, or rob anybody either.

Most people here support the concept of entirely customisable cognitive environments in terms of shells, window managers, and so on; from the perspective of mechanistic atheism, a form of theistic belief doesn't need to be perceived much differently.

If you choose to go without one, for whatever reason, that's fine; I'm not evangelical in the slightest, and I endorse the right of anyone to be totally atheistic who wants to be. All I want is recognition of the same right of freedom of belief myself. If people aren't using theism as an excuse to commit crimes, (and I don't) there is no reason why theism should not be permissible.

IIRC, when the Church of Scientology International [wikipedia.org]lost a major lawsuit by Steve Fishman [cmu.edu], the church executives turned the CSI into a shell, transferring virtually all capital and IP to the Religious Technology Center [wikipedia.org](which licensed "its" IP back to the CSI), theoretically leaving the plaintiff with nothing from which he could collect.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that although the Paris center is incorporated independently of the mother church, and that it'll turn out that, like every Hollywood production, they've been "broke" all along.

The problem with your argument is that you treat all denominations as the same.

If you want to talk about indulgences, that's more of a Catholic issue. Protestants do not believe in that doctrine; rather, they believe that once you accept Christ, all sins are forgiven (past present, and future) and no further payment is required.

Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that all evangelicals are like the ones that have been discredited. It's just that the press thrives on scandal and you very seldom hear about the good ones.

At one time, Catholic rites were always performed in Latin, a language even most Europeans no longer spoke. Translation of the bible into native languages was considered heresy. Why? To force people to support a priest caste who had a monopoly on reading and interpreting scripture. So yes, effectively people WERE charged for reading the bible, as well as charged for indulgences. The Protestant Reformation was a reaction to the monetization of religion. Sounds like CofS could use a little reformation as well.

It's not about nutjobness. By pointing out how ridiculous some story about Xenu (or Jesus) is, you distract people from the crimes that Scientologists are committing. Lying to people by saying they're inhabited by thetans, or that they're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire if they don't accept Jesus, is not the crime we're talking about here. This isn't what Scientology has been accused of.

As a seminary graduate with a Doctorate in New Testament from the University of Virginia... and I never had to blow a single goat. Amazing!

All the source documents for Christian theology are publicly available, and well out of copyright. What are copyrighted is modern translations of documents... which I sort of hate, but then again theology professors have to eat too. If you're willing to take the time and effort to learn Greek and Latin, you can read them more-or-less for free. And if even if you're not, the modern translations are pretty much available from any well-stocked library (sadly, public libraries ignore religion, so public libraries don't help.)

Shoot... Union Theological Seminary of Virginia in Richmond--which has one of the best theological libraries in the country--will give you a card just for the asking. And they're not alone... many seminary libraries are open to the public.

All the source documents for Christian theology are publicly available

Depends on what you call source documents. If you mean the Hebrew scriptures and the NT (including newer archaeological finds), sure. However since you are a dead language fan, three words for you: Archivum Secretum Vaticanum. But then the whole point of a secret archive is that its.... well.... secret. We don't know what source documents may be in it any more than people knew in the 80's about Xenu and the DC-8s.

However you might be one of the ones who argue RCC != Christian. But since they are the oldest school on the block for the most part I'll assume they have some goods the newer kids might not have. (Though as an atheist the goods in question are about as valuable to me as a wet kleenex or Vista.) However my original point was that there is just as much secrecy in Christianity (more now really since the Vatican has done a better job keeping their stuff off of WikiLeaks) than in the CO$.

And its just too unfortunate that you didn't go to school in West Virginia.... the potential for sheep rather than goat jokes would have been enormous. But I'm just not that lucky.

Try attending church regularly and never donating a cent. Watch how the other people treat you.

It's not like people are required to give regularly. (many people pay monthly or quarterly) People give under the pretense that God has blessed them and they want to give part of that back out of gratitude. Whether you choose to give or not is up to you, and you give what you feel you should give. It's not like you should feel like you're paying dues or have a mentality where you expect to get something back. Most churches only keep track of how much you give if you pay through check (and that's more of a service to you so you know what to declare on your taxes) You always have the option of donating cash if you want to give anonymously.

That's a fine generalization, and may or may not be generally true, but my folks and I attended a presbyterian church for 4 years. We stopped when we were told not to return until we wanted to tithe appropriately.

It's a tax, enforced by social ostracism and in our case at least, direct pronouncements from the pastor. Calling it anything else is disingenuous.

I do attend a church regularly, and more than half of the people who attend regularly with me never contribute a cent. They are loved just the same as others who do contribute. The only person who knows how much is actually donated is the treasurer. I'm the council president and former treasurer, so I know of what I speak.

On the other hand, I have had friends that attend churches where the whole sermon is about giving money to the church. It was disheartening to them. However, just because it is this way in one, some, many or most, does not mean that it is universal. It is important to note that sacrifice is a part of most religions, in some way or another. The Christian New Testament has a parable about the widow and her two mites, and the rich man an his wealth. This is about sacrifice and not about volume. If you belief in something but are not willing to sacrifice for it, do you truly believe? Or are you there for some side benefit. You don't have to frame this solely in religion. Patriotism (whose concept was abused by our previous president), science, public safety and other noble pursuits are often characterized by sacrifice.

I my church there are many things required of us to be members. Only one of them has to do with money, and all of them have to do with helping humanity (note: not just those of my religion).

Disclaimer: I am an ordained Baptist minister, and have pastored churches on a part-time basis. So, on the one hand, I speak from experience. On the other hand, if you follow the usual Slashdot assumptions about ministers, I'm a liar and a cheat. (I'm neither.)

I can't speak to how other denominations manage it, but in most traditional Baptist churches around here (Virginia) a LOT of effort is taken to prevent this. At the low end, only 2 people count the offering each week, and these people are NOT the pastor. At the high end, many churches outsource the counting of the offering entirely (banks will do this for you, for a fee.) The one constant, in my experience, is that the pastor never has access to the offering figures and that information is always closely held. I've served 4 separate churches, and have never had any idea who gave how much. Nor did I want to know.

I'm the son of a Lutheran pastor, so while I don't have first hand experience I've picked up stuff now and then. As a sibling post to your stated, no one's coffers are actually related to them unless they decide to make it so, either by paying by check or using a set of envelopes. These envelopes are all given in a box to each church member for each church year, enough for every regular service, stamped with a number for that person. If the person wishes, they can use the envelope for cash during the offering and that will be included in their "personal statement" for tax purposes. Plain cash is gladly accepted, and no one makes note of who donates what cash.

To my knowledge, my dad doesn't get direct access to offering figures for individuals; as with your church, the counting is done by elders or other appointed members. The entire congregation knows the general numbers (we list attendance and offerings in the bulletin for the previous Sunday), but the pastor doesn't deal with that stuff himself.

Read Margaret Singer, Richard Ofshe, or many others if you want a good comparison of religion and cults. The key thing is that cults deceive people into joining so there is no real informed consent. People join under false pretenses and are conned out of their money (basically by false advertising / fradulent misrepresentation). No cults are ever upfront about all their beliefs because nobody would ever join if they knew about the wacky shit higher up the ladder. You have to be good and brainwashed before y

But you have an informed choice to believe in Zombie Jesus or not to. In Scientology, by the time you find out what it's really about, you've spent hundreds of thousands, all your friends and contacts are Scientology, and leaving means cutting off contact with all of them (starting an entire new life). Generally, Christians won't shun you if you leave (but they might try and convert you back, which is just persuasion).

There is also the fact that scientology practices thought reform [rickross.com] (brainwashing) and ericsonian hypnosis, something that does not happen in legitimate religions. The difference, again, is that there is a lack of informed consent. They modify your thinking in ways you do not realize.

"Yeah, that whole indoctrination of the young thing is irrelevant, right?"

Yes. That's what happens when you're young, whether your "indoctrination" is about being christian, vegetarian, not dropping litter in streets, not stealing, learning to write, learning maths... you can be brought up christian, yet drop the religion when you grow up enough to think for yourself. I, many in my family, and many of my friends, are living proof of that. If people believe in their religion, of course they're going to share it with their kids, it's not "evil conspiracy against children", that's a stupid argument, it's just the way things are going to happen. Like people are going to believe their religion is 'The True Way' yet hide it from their children. That's ridiculous. And the religion's ridiculous to begin with... so that's like... ridiculous squared!

I know it's trendy and hip to bash Christianity on Slashdot (before you ask, I'm agnostic), there are significant differences.

1.) The Bible is pretty easy to access. In fact, you can often get it for free because its believers want you to read it.2.) I submit that believing some creator of the universe manifested its power in the form of a sacrificial holy man long ago is far less wacky then believing an intergalactic overlord imprisoned in a volcano who attached alien ghosts to primitive humans, causing all their problems.3.) In spite of all the shit they get, the Christians I've met in life have generally been very friendly and nice to me. Just good folks who believe what they believe. You have your bad apples, but that's true for every group in the world. Scientologists, on the other hand, will ask you if you rape babies and are trained to believe that anyone critical of the religion is a criminal who is hiding dark secrets.

So, yeah, very little like Christianity, to be perfectly honest. You were just going for a cheap +5 Insightful by bashing the easy target.

I don't think it's necessary for anyone to get into a dick-measuring contest with $cientologists. I don't find Christianity's claims any more credible, per se. But you do hit on one key difference. $cientology is basically a shell game where the believer has to keep paying more and more money to get all those deep secrets. For better or for worse, one can go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister and get lessons on their branch of Christianity for free. These guys mass produce for free or for very little cost their holy books, and they even let people into their houses of worship for free. Yes, most churches send around the collection plate, but I don't know of any churches that would deprive someone of the Sacraments because they didn't give their church money.

It's not about qualitative aspects of either religion, it is really about the fact that one is a religion, and one is simply a cult/marketing scam that uses the size of one's pocket book as the only real determinant of salvation.

For better or for worse, one can go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister and get lessons on their branch of Christianity for free.

Hell, for that matter, one can often go to a Catholic priest or a Protestant minister -- or a Jewish rabbi for that matter -- and get a free meal and a place to sleep along with the lessons. As others have said before me, you ever seen a Scientology soup kitchen?

A friend of mine recently had a pair of Mormons come to his front door and ask to talk to him about the Bible. He, a confirmed nonbeliever, told them he was willing to talk to them... for fifty bucks. Completely calmly, they replied that they couldn't give him money, but if he needed some help with something -- say, the garbage taken out, or the dishes cleaned up, or some furniture moved, or something -- then they would happy to help him with that first, and one of them could make coffee to drink during the talk, too. He still declined, but I suggest this to you: Next time you meet a Scientologist and they ask you to take their stupid little "personality test," tell them you'll do it... for one dollar. See what you get.

One thing I've noted is that you don't actually have to pay large sums of money to be a Christian. In fact, I don't know of any mainstream churches that will toss you out or suspend you if you don't put any money in the collection plate.

So, while the claims of both can be pretty stupid, Christianity actually is a religion, while $cientology is just a scam.

If you search Google for "Mormon cult," you will find many, many pages that insist that the LDS Church is a cult. If you dig into those pages, however, you will find that most of them are written by evangelicals and Christian fundamentalist sects.

One very common practice on many of these sites is to begin with the dictionary definition of "cult" and use that as "proof" that Mormonism is a cult. There exist, however, very sophisticated definitions and many, many well-reasoned and elaborate essays and explanations of cult beliefs that offer much more proof than the dictionary. It is these definitions that are used when Scientology is described as a cult. The same guidelines don't apply so readily to Mormonism, however.

In fact, the usual objections to Mormonism used to label them as a cult are that they are not true Christians, so-called, and therefore must be a cult. Christian fundamentalists claim that Mormons don't accept the Bible as the undisputed word of God, that they don't believe in the Trinity, that they have different traditions not set out in the Bible, and so on. All of that may be true, but it just makes them bad Christians (in somebody's eyes). It doesn't make them a cult.

Now, I'm not a Mormon and I can't really speak for the wisdom of their beliefs, or lack thereof. But your flip comment seems to be suggesting that Mormons do the things that Scientologists do, such as "splitting up families and taking children from their parents" -- that's just crazy talk, when in modern times Mormons typically have even bigger families than Catholics.

I'm sure Mormons believe many things that you don't believe. But just because you call them a cult doesn't make it so -- it just makes you a religious zealot. So what are you talking about?

Read Margaret Singer, Richard Ofshe, or many others if you want a good comparison of religion and cults. The key thing is that cults deceive people into joining so there is no real informed consent. People join under false pretenses and are conned out of their money (basically by false advertising / fradulent misrepresentation). No cults are ever upfront about all their beliefs because nobody would ever join if they knew about the wacky shit higher up the ladder. You have to be good and brainwashed before you even find out about the space alien stuff.

An interesting question, but they're not in court because of their beliefs, but because of their alleged actions: "The organisation, he [the magistrate] argued, is 'first and foremost a commercial business' whose actions reveal 'a real obsession for financial remuneration'."

If you're dumb enough to spend thousands of dollars on something called a 'Thetin meter' then it's your fault.. not the seller's.

In many places, there are laws regarding the safety of a product and its fitness to perform the function for which it was purchased. They had better be able to demonstrate that a Thetin meter definitely measures whatever it measures properly.

Many things. Many, many things. DISCLAIMER: I am not a Catholic, and my interpretation of their beliefs is meant only as a guideline and can probably be waved away as fatally inept by any real Catholic. Furthermore I think recent stories about Catholic abuse of children are abhorrent and are probably the greatest crisis the Church has faced since Martin Luther.

That said... here's just one example.

The Catholic church requires believers to confess their sins. Similarly, the so-called Church of Scientology requires believers to undergo a process that it calls "auditing," in which the believer talks frankly about past events. What's the difference?

Well, when the Scientologists do it, I am told, the subject is asked a series of questions, called a "process." The answers to your questions are written down in the form of notes, which are then compiled and permanently retained in a "preclear folder." You can only move on to a new process -- a new set of questions -- when the objective of the previous set of questions has been achieved (to the interviewer's satisfaction). No other guidance or evaluation of the subject is supposedly given, and the auditing process as a whole takes as long as is necessary, i.e. the subject may have to go home, come back later, and continue the same specific process until the interviewer (with the help of a religious object called an "E-meter") says it's time to move on to the next stage. The goal of auditing is said to be to identify memories of the subject's "thetan," both from the present and past lives, which are inhibiting the subject's full abilities (in other words, those things that make the subject a bad and ineffective person). The subject is told that only ongoing and successful practice of Scientology can free them from those bad qualities which oppress them. And furthermore, practicing costs money.

Compare now to how the Catholics do it. You go into a Catholic church and you sit down in a space nearby to the priest. Generally, the priest is partially concealed from you so you do not have to look him in the eye. He might ask you a couple of simple questions about whether you've been practicing Catholic ritual, and then he tells you to begin. That is, he asks you nothing specific -- you just say what you personally feel you need to say. He might ask you to clarify. But generally, the process should take five minutes or less, if you've been doing it regularly. Then he may give you some advice about penance -- something realistic that you can do to make up for your sins, which might just be observance of some ritual -- and then he says, essentially: "If you do these things I have said, and you've been honest about your confession, then God is going to pretty much forget about everything you've said here for the rest of your life and all of eternity. There may be some Purgatory stuff to deal with, but it could have been a lot worse. Do those things and your burden is lifted, effective today; now go home to your family." Total monetary charges incurred: Zero.

Kinda different, don't you think? Can you see the difference in psychological impact, the subtle manipulation that the Scientologist undergoes? People talk about "Catholic guilt," but that's nothing compared to what the Scientologists put you through.

That's what's so insidious about Scientology -- the way they can manipulate nonbelievers as well as believers. Superficially, all ritual looks the same to a nonbeliever -- that is, it just seems ridiculous -- which is why Scientologists get away with their brainwashing and other manipulative practices. People look at them and say "they're a bunch of kooks, just like all the others." And the Scientologists smile and say, "That's right. See? We're just like all the others." But it ain't true. Diss Catholics if you must, but don't make the mistake of using Catholicism as an excuse to turn a blind eye to the abuses of Scientology.